What's New In DevTools (Chrome 87)

Jecelyn Yeen

New CSS Grid debugging tools

DevTools now has better support for CSS grid debugging!

CSS grid debugging

When an HTML element on your page has display: grid or display: inline-grid applied to it, you can see a grid badge next to it in the Elements panel. Click the badge to toggle the display of a grid overlay on the page.

The new Layout pane has a Grid section offering you a number of options for viewing the grids.

Check out the documentation to learn more.

Chromium issue: 1047356

New WebAuthn tab

You can now emulate authenticators and debug the Web Authentication API with the new WebAuthn tab.

Select More options > More tools > WebAuthn to open the WebAuthn tab.

WebAuthn tab

Prior to the new WebAuthn tab, there was no native WebAuthn debugging support on Chrome. Developers needed physical authenticators to test their web application with Web Authentication API.

With the new WebAuthn tab, web developers can now emulate these authenticators, customize their capabilities, and inspect their states, without the need of any physical authenticators. This makes the debugging experience much easier.

Check out our documentation to learn more about the WebAuthn feature.

Chromium issue: 1034663

Move tools between top and bottom panel

DevTools now support moving tools in DevTools between the top and bottom panel. This way, you can view any two tools at once.

For example, if you would like to view Elements and Sources panel at once, you can right click on the Sources panel, and select Move to bottom to move it to the bottom.

Move to bottom

Similarly, you can move any bottom tab to the top by right clicking on a tab and select Move to top.

Move to top

Chromium issue: 1075732

Elements panel updates

View the Computed sidebar pane in the Styles pane

You can now toggle the Computed sidebar pane in the Styles pane.

The Computed sidebar pane in the Styles pane is collapsed by default. Click on the button to toggle it.

Computed sidebar pane

Chromium issue: 1073899

Grouping CSS properties in the Computed pane

You can now group the CSS properties by categories in the Computed pane.

With this new grouping feature, it will be easier to navigate in the Computed pane (less scrolling) and selectively focus on a set of related properties for CSS inspection.

On the Elements panel, select an element. Toggle the Group checkbox to group/ungroup the CSS properties.

Grouping CSS properties

Chromium issues: 1096230, 1084673, 1106251

Lighthouse 6.4 in the Lighthouse panel

The Lighthouse panel is now running Lighthouse 6.4. Check out the release notes for a full list of changes.

Lighthouse

New audits in Lighthouse 6.4:

  • Preload fonts. Validates if all fonts that usefont-display: optional were preloaded.
  • Valid source maps. Audits if a page has valid source maps for large, first-party JavaScript.
  • [Experimental] Large JavaScript library. Large JavaScript libraries can lead to poor performance. This audit suggests cheaper alternatives to common, large JavaScript libraries like moment.js.

Chromium issue: 772558

performance.mark() events in the Timings section

The Timings section of a Performance recording now marks performance.mark() events.

Performance.mark events

New resource-type and url filters in the Network panel

Use the new resource-type and url keywords in the Network panel to filter network requests.

For example, use resource-type:image to focus on the network requests that are images.

resource-type filter

Check out filter requests by properties to discover more special keywords like resource-type and url.

Chromium issues: 1121141, 1104188

Frame details view updates

Display COEP and COOP reporting to endpoint

You can now view the Cross-Origin Embedder Policy (COEP) and Cross-Origin Opener Policy (COOP)reporting to endpoint under the Security & Isolation section.

The Reporting API defines a new HTTP header, Report-To, that gives web developers a way to specify server endpoints for the browser to send warnings and errors to.

reporting to endpoint

Read this article to learn more about how to enable COEP and COOP and make your website "cross-origin isolated".

Chromium issue: 1051466

Display COEP and COOP report-only mode

DevTools now displays report-only label for COEP and COOP that are set to report-only mode.

report-only label

Watch this video to learn about how to prevent information leaks and enable COOP and COEP in your website.

Chromium issue: 1051466

Deprecation of Settings in the More tools menu

The Settings in the More tools menu has been deprecated. Open the Settings from the main panel instead.

Settings in the main panel

Chromium issue: 1121312

Experimental features

View and fix color contrast issues in the CSS Overview panel

CSS Overview panel now displays a list of low color contrast texts of your page.

In this example, the demo page has a low color contrast issue. Click on the issue, you can view a list of elements that have the issue.

Low color contrast issues

Click on an element in the list to open the element in Elements panel. DevTools provides auto color suggestion to help you fix the low contrast text.

Chromium issue: 1120316

Customize keyboard shortcuts in DevTools

You can now customize the keyboard shortcuts for your favourite commands in DevTools.

Go to Settings > Shortcuts, hovering on a command and click the Edit button (pen icon) to customize the keyboard shortcut.

Customize keyboard shortcuts

To reset all shortcuts, click on Restore default shortcuts.

Chromium issue: 174309

Download the preview channels

Consider using the Chrome Canary, Dev, or Beta as your default development browser. These preview channels give you access to the latest DevTools features, let you test cutting-edge web platform APIs, and help you find issues on your site before your users do!

Get in touch with the Chrome DevTools team

Use the following options to discuss the new features, updates, or anything else related to DevTools.

What's new in DevTools

A list of everything that has been covered in the What's new in DevTools series.